St Albans MP misquoted online after Windrush debate

St Albans MP Anne Main has been accused of making insensitive remarks about slavery after her words were taken out of context on Twitter.

The accusations came after yesterday’s debate (May 2) in Parliament about the Windrush scandal, which jeopardised the immigration status of the children of the ‘Windrush generation’, who migrated to the UK from the Caribbean before the 1970s.

A tweet by Satbir Singh, chief executive of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants charity, said: “Hold the phones. Did Conservative MP Anne Main just use the words “slavery or whatever” to put down @DavidLammy?”

During the debate, Labour MP for Tottenham David Lammy said: “The Windrush generation are here because of slavery. The Windrush story is the story of British empire.”

In response Mrs Main said: “To conflate this debate with other forms of immigration, slavery and whatever else people have chucked into the mix, including fishing, does a disservice to the debate we must have about the wrongs that were done in the processing of the Windrush generation.”

He responded to Mrs Main by saying: “I have had to cope with the hon. Lady saying that we cannot link the Windrush generation to slavery.”

In response to the tweet, Mr Lammy tweeted: “I raised a point of order. In 1833 Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act. £17bn of compensation to slave owners for the loss of their property - my ancestors.

“The slaves received no reparations. Some people simply do not know their history or do not want to know hard truths.”